Thursday 19 March 2009

Last day of LSE teaching

It is amazing how fast time has flown by on my course - exactly as several people said it would. Can this really be the last day of teaching for this year? True, there are one or two lectures still outstanding on PH400 due to the school being closed for snow. But I haven't been going to those this term. Moreover, the feedback on these lectures has not been good.

So today it is our last "seminar" with John Milton on history of science and the topic is mechanics from Descartes to Newton. This is rather rushed to fit in the one period but, as usual, is full of interesting stuff even if the format is not the seminar we had thought it would be. I have a theory thay John has been teaching this course for so long that the idea of doing a seminar in it fills him with dread. He has heard every naive question that students ask and rather than go through the motions of listening to this year's students raise the same points as last year, he has sidestepped this by going straight on to the answers!

One disappointment afterwards is that no one fancies going for lunch together. As this is my last day, I had rather hoped we could have all had a chat together. Instead people have things to do. For instance Victor is off to the Warburg Institute where he has acquired a library ticket and where the books on History of Science are apparently superb. Caroline is off to the library. Leonardo didn't attend the seminar. And of course Anne Marie has decided to switch to being a part time student and is going to take this class next year so she wasn't here either - maybe I will see her again next year?

So rather a sad end to the term really. And if things don't work out well on other fronts, this might be the end of the course for me too. A very sad thought

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